Nigel Rogers describes his company as a bellwether for the UK manufacturing industry. As one of the first firms to embrace the challenges and opportunities of meeting demand for offshore services from its customers, Stadium Group Plc (LON:SDM) has proved that it is possible for manufacturers to prosper from a UK base. Indeed, shares in the AIM listed electronics group have surged by 50% since the start of 2010 after it emerged from the economic downturn with a performance that beat market expectations and even stronger confidence in its core business. The chief executive of Stadium, Rogers spent much of the recession cutting costs and boosting efficiency across the group’s operations in the UK and Asia. With demand now growing for its services, the company recently unveiled a 37% rise in revenues to £23.13m in the first half of 2010, with pre-tax profits up 120% to £1.45m and a 0.95p interim dividend – up from 0.80p last year. After finally cutting loose its non-core, yet profitable, Branded Plastics business in June, the company is now wholly focused on expanding its core Power and Electronics operations.

For investors eyeing the wider sector, Stadium’s presence in the electronic instruments and controls segment of the AIM market means that its peers range from the likes of Acta Spa (LON:ACTA) and AFC Energy Plc (LON:AFC) on the cleantech side, to Zytronic (LON:ZYT) and Dewhurst (LON:DWHT) .

Stockopedia spoke to Nigel Rogers about the impact of the economic downturn and his plans to expand Stadium even further.

You have been with Stadium since 1993; can you give me an idea about how the group has evolved during that time, how have markets changed and how have you adapted to meet demand?

I joined as finance director, at which time Stadium was a private company and at that stage was predominantly manufacturing in plastic injection moulding and in electronics. It was growing quite rapidly on the back of multi-nationals with a UK presence who were looking to rationalise their supplier base and find high quality suppliers with those two technologies, either separately or together as a full box build.

We floated on the Stock Exchange on the full markets in 1996. We did a number of targeted acquisitions covering each of those two areas but the…

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